


Down Every Street

by asparagus_writes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin in this dream is actually WORSE than he is in canon, Angst, Drabble, Gen, Infinite sadness, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, Old Ben Kenobi, Self-Loathing, the events are a dream but the self-loathing is so real, young Luke Skywalker (but not in a cute way)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28860468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagus_writes/pseuds/asparagus_writes
Summary: Even after all Anakin has done, Obi Wan still--still--cannot bring himself to kill his brother.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Down Every Street

**Author's Note:**

> _She'll follow me_  
>  _Down every street_  
>  _No matter what my crime_  
> 
> 
> lyrics from "Amsterdam" by Gregory Alan Isakov
> 
> (me and writing fics based off random song lyrics, name a more iconic duo)

Obi Wan stands in the sandy doorway to the Lars residence, the rising suns at his back. Before he had gone to sleep last night, he had gotten a bad feeling, and had vowed he would check if everything was okay in the morning.

The smell of burnt flesh drifts to him on the air, and suddenly he wishes that he had never gone to sleep at all.

Descending the rough stone stairs on feet heavy with dread, the hem of his cloak stirring up sharp grains of sand, Obi Wan finds Owen and Beru lifeless on the floor. Their heads have been separated cleanly from their necks by a lightsaber. Smoke curls from their wounds and into the air, but it is coming from somewhere else too.

_No no no no no no no no._ He needs to find Luke.

He steps over their bodies, wishing he hadn’t been deterred last night by Owen’s wish that Obi Wan not interfere in Luke’s life. Owen had distrusted Obi Wan, he had been selfish, had thought only of himself, believing that he knew what was best, believing that he could protect his family.

It is strange how, despite sharing no blood with Anakin, Owen was so much like him.

Then again, the problem is that everyone is like Anakin in the ways that it counts. They are human; they are flawed. But none of them have done what Anakin did, and for the life of him, Obi Wan cannot understand _why_.

The only answer he can find—the only difference between Anakin and everyone else—is himself: Obi Wan Kenobi.

He turns a corner and sees a fire blazing. At its center is Anakin, with his back to Obi Wan, flames licking up and consuming his robes. His blue lightsaber blazes at his side, clenched in a blackening hand.

Anakin does not flinch, nor does he scream as be burns—not as he had years ago. He does not even seem to notice that Obi Wan is there: an improvement on the first time they met like this.

Obi Wan steps to the side, to peer around Anakin, and there is Luke.

He is too late.

The small boy lies on the ground, a steaming hole marring the place where his innocent, growing heart should reside. Luke’s eyes stare, unseeing, at his father’s flaming boots before him. The look in them is just as Anakin’s had looked as he stood in front of the Jedi Council for the first time at the age of nine.

This, _this_ is heinous.

Anakin still does not acknowledge any other living presence in the room and Obi Wan reaches for the lightsaber on his belt. He could strike him down right here and now, and the galaxy would be better for it. Anakin has killed the one last good thing about him ~~Force only knows what has happened to Leia~~. There is no reason Anakin should continue to live.

Anakin’s slaughter of other people’s children should be no different than the slaughter of his own, and yet, somehow, it is, and Obi Wan vows to act this time. It makes Obi Wan a hypocrite, but he _will_ do it this time.

He ignites his weapon and raises it—

He never brings it down. Obi Wan just stands there, every cell in his body perfectly frozen, and allows Anakin to live.

Why, why, _why_ , can he not do this one thing? Why can he _never_ do this one thing?

It would be a mercy, Obi Wan knows, to kill Anakin now: a quick and almost painless death compared to the fire that licks at his former apprentice’s skin. Not even to ease Anakin’s suffering can Obi Wan kill him.

Obi Wan does not— _cannot_ —move a single muscle. The only sounds in the room are the crackle of flames and the hum of plasma. Obi Wan closes his eyes. He is a failure. He is a coward.

When he opens them, he is staring at the ceiling of his own hut. Sand blows through the crack at the bottom of the door and blusters weakly through the room before settling to the floor. The full force of a sandstorm hurls its natural fury against the outside of sandstone walls.

Obi Wan has lived here long enough to have expected it—to have felt it in the air—and yet he had done nothing. He never does.

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to experiment with a bit of a different story structure and prose style--did it work?


End file.
